Ennio Morricone (1995) (TV)

Director:

David Thompson

Writer:

John Kaylin (screenplay)

Release Date:

1995 (UK)

Genre:

Documentary

Plot:

A documentary exploring the life and work of the great Italian composer. |

Cast

  (Credited cast)

John Boorman	...	Himself
Robert De Niro	...	(archive footage)
Brian De Palma	...	Himself
Clint Eastwood	...	(archive footage)
Christopher Frayling	...	Himself
Jeremy Irons	...	(archive footage)
Sergio Leone	...	Himself
Andrea Morricone	...	Himself
Ennio Morricone	...	Himself
Gillo Pontecorvo	...	Himself
David Puttnam	...	Himself
Eli Wallach	...	(archive footage)

Country:

UK

Language:

English | Italian

Color:

Color

Company:

BBC Films

Short & Sweet!

A short documentary on my favorite film composer Ennio Morricone, whom most of you probably know from his ground-breaking work on Sergio Leone's trilogy of spaghetti-westerns w/Squint Eastwood.

It features the usual talking heads, peers in the industry, biographers, producers & directors, such as Brian DePalma, John Boorman, David Putnam, Gillo Pontecorvo & of course Sergio Leone.

There wasn't a great deal of new information, I did find out he used to be an arranger before he became famous for composing & that his work on A Fistful of Dollars, particularly the main theme was taken from an already existent popular Italian album he had written & arranged on which Sergio loved & actually hired him on the merit of.

Prior to A their collaboration on Fistful of Dollars, the traditional way of scoring a film would be to present the finished product of a film (rough-cut) to the composer & he would write something based on what he saw, but w/these two, Leone had the idea to have the music written first & to construct the scenes he would shoot based on the music. That alone created countless copy-cat films & spaghetti-westerns were on their way to worldwide recognition! Probably my favorite score is to The Mission, the Robert DeNiro/Jeremy Irons vehicle which should have easily won the Academy Award but didn't. Morricone was ROBBED I tell ya! This was a fun documentary, it was great seeing the film clips w/some voice-over information being given. It's really not an in depth look at he composer, but worthwhile if you get the opportunity to see it...